May 23, 1849 From letter published in the Missouri Whig , Palmyra July 12, 1849 FROM THE PLAINS Our old friend, Mr. Lewis Vanlandingham, has furnished us with extracts from a letter written by his son, Mr. R. K. Vanlandingham, now on his way to California. The letter is dated near Fort Kearney, May 23d, … Read more
May 10, 1849 From letters published in the Missouri Whig, Palmyra ca May, 1849 FROM THE CALIFORNIANS ST. JOSEPH, May 10, 1849. MR. SOSEY — Dear Sir: We reached here to-day, all well, after a trip of three weeks. We travelled leisurely, finding the grass not sufficient to sustain our cattle without grain. St. Joseph … Read more
Accompanied by Dr. E.T. Swan, we visited officials at the Mark Twain CCC Camp at Florida Wednesday evening and were taken on an inspection tour of the camp by Cloyd A. Downs, Company Corp Commander of Camp No. 1743, Harvey Rea, Quartermaster Representative from Jefferson Barracks, and Elmer Squires, subaltern officer. They showed us stacks … Read more
A recent issue of the National Miller contained a write-tip of some of the old water mills of Missouri, and among them was the old Bay Mill South of this city. The article, in part, is as follows: Perhaps one of the most noted of the early day grinding outfits was the Bay Mills, north … Read more
Of the thousands of bars of soap sold in Hannibal stores each year, probably not one is made in Hannibal. But, until 33 years ago a large, or even major, part of the local soap supply came from Hannibal factories.
More than a half-century of progress has given Hannibal one of the best municipally owned public utilities to be found in any city of its size. Lighting by electricity has been provided in Hannibal since 1886, while the city water department was put into operation in 1913, after many years of private ownership of the utility. The original water plant was built in 1879 and consisted of one Blake pump with a capacity of 1,500,000 gallons of water in 24 hours, and two steam boilers of 100 horsepower capacity.
Editor’s note: This is a reprint of a story that was originally printed in the Hannibal Courier-Post in 1938, in honor of the newspaper’s 100th anniversary. This being a motor age, the appearance of a horse drawn buggy, surrey or even a farm wagon along Broadway is something of a rarity, but vehicles of this … Read more
It was one of the city’s earliest brick plants and at one time one of the most important. While brick making never was a large industry here, for many years the city was not without such a plant. It was not until the modern trend of industry to volume production began to get more and more of business that Hannibal was left entirely without its brick factories.
Hamlet in Missouri Exists by Spoken Word Only Technically, Smileyville doesn’t even exist anymore. It’s just a stretch of road about five miles northeast of Palmyra. Where once a blacksmith shop, general store and high school stood are now empty lots and fields. If you bomb down Marion County Road 321 west from U.S. 61, … Read more
This Article originally appeared in the February-March 2000 issue of Missouri Life Magazine Just as HANNIBAL inspired the sleepy river towns of MARK TWAIN’S fiction, it now piques the imagination of ENTREPRENEURS, thousands of TOURISTS, HISTORIANS, budding WRITERS, and city PLANNERS, not to mention the 18,004 people who make Hannibal their HOME. Although it is … Read more